You may not remember Sadie. When we last (first) met her she was helping Tina fight off a grim reaper while babysitting her sister Maria’s daughter. Don’t remember that? It’s okay, it was a while ago, but you can read that here. Or, if you want to read the first story with Tina, you’ve got to go back to just the third story I wrote for the first year of 31 Ghosts, The Ghost You Know – still one of Akilah’s favs.

The door to the women’s room creaked open. “Hello?” Sadie said as she stepped inside. She looked reflexively looked under the stalls for feet even though she knew she was the first person at the school except for staff. And judging by the few cars in the lot, she had beat most of them, too. Satisfied she was alone, she took her mask off and stuffed it in her pocket. She stood still listening for something, anything. Finally, she sighed. “I guess she must have left…”

The door to the handicapped stall at the end swung open and a shape blurred out towards Sadie. Before she knew it, she was tingling all over as the ghost hugged her tightly. “Oh my God, you came back! Sadie! I missed you!”

“Ow, ow, ow, okay, okay,” Sadie said, staggering back trying to disengage. When they separated, Sadie stared at the translucent willowy blonde girl with a huge smile. Sadie smiled back. “Nicole! You’re still here!”

“Well, yeah,” she said looking around the bathroom. “Where was I going to go? I’m kind of stuck here.”

“I… uh… wasn’t sure. My ghost friend, Tina? She can move around pretty freely. I don’t really know what the rules are…” Said said.

“Yeah, me neither,” Nicole said glumly. “And I am a ghost!” Both girls were quiet for a long moment. “So… what happened? You were here – everyone was here – and then nothing. For like a year! There was no one here! What happened?”

“You don’t know about the whole pandemic?”

“Pandemic?”

“Covid-19?”

“Covid what?”

“Girl, I gotta catch you up…” they both sank to the floor with backs against the wall.

Sadie told her about the virus, masks, washing hands, the vaccine, vaccine deniers, the whole lot of it.

“Holy shit,” Nicole said. “So you spent all of last year going to school online?! Did that… suck?”

“Eh,” Sadie said, “It had some advantages – going to school in your pajamas was kind of cool. But I missed seeing everyone. Seeing you.”

Nicole smiled shyly. “It was really weird being here alone… I thought I was, I don’t know…. Being punished.”

“For what?”

“You know…” she stood up and walked away from Sadie. “For killing myself,” she said quietly in almost a mumble.

“Oh, Nicole, no! No one was punishing you!” Sadie stepped next to her friend.

“Then why am I trapped here?” Nicole spun to face Sadie, tears in her eyes. “I can’t leave this goddamn bathroom where I… did it. I just… blacked out and then… here I am?” she raised her hands palms up with a sad smile on her face. “If that isn’t punishment…” she shook her head and wiped away the tears. “And then you – the only one who’s been able to see me and my only friend… disappears…”

“Nicole, you know…”

“I know, I know – everyone disappeared, whether they could see me or not. So, you know, I knew something was going on. But… I didn’t know. And I started thinking about everything…” she started crying again.

Sadie focused and moved in and put her arm around her friend. She immediately felt the painful tingles of contact, but her focus blocked it out after a moment. And comforting her friend was more important than a little discomfort. She held Nicole while the girl’s body wracked with sobs.

When Nicole’s crying started to subside, Sadie said, “Hey?” Nicole turned her tear stained face up to her and Sadie moved a damp lock of hair off the ghost’s face.

Nicole gasped. “How… how did you do that?” then she realized she was in contact with Sadie and scrambled back to create space between them. “Whoa, sorry, Sadie! I didn’t mean to touch you! I know you said that hurts…”

“It’s okay, Nicole,” Sadie said. “I’ve learned a lot about what I can do with my… powers? Is that too strong a word?”

“Not from where I’m haunting.”

They both laughed.

“Look, Nicole, I’m going to talk to Tina and we’re going to figure out how to get you out of here.”

“Aww, girl, you know it’s hopeless…”

“It’s not hopeless. If I’ve learned anything during this fucking pandemic, it’s you have to have hope. I’ve got hope. I know we’re going to get you out of here. Trust me.”

Nicole stared at Sadie for a long moment. “I trust you.”

I could have put a picture of Alli here. But, then it might seem too close to home. For the record, we have no ghosts… yet!

I’ve known our place is haunted since the day we moved in and the top box of cups and mugs tumbled off the bottom box of pots and pans, rattling its (well padded) contents.
“That’s weird,” I said.

“What’s weird?” Susan asked as she was unpacking a box of dishes

“That box just fell off the other box there,” I said pointing to it.

“Oh,” she said turning and regarding the fallen box. “I thought you just dropped it.”

“Nope.”

“Maybe you stacked it off balance?”

“No, it was stacked on there perfectly.”

“Hmm,” Susan said regarding the box on its side. Then she looked at me looking at the box. Then back at the box. “Well,” she said turning back to the plate box, “I guess it must be ghosts.”

She was kidding…. But she was right.

A few days later we were watching television when a cabinet in the kitchen opened and slammed closed.

“Amy?” Susan asked.

“Yeah?”

“That wasn’t you, right?”

“Did my arm move from around your shoulders?

“No.”

“Okay, yeah, couldn’t have been me.”

“Well, it wasn’t me….”

“Ghosts,” I said. And the cabinet opened and slammed closed again. A few minutes later, bang!

Susan paused the show. “What are we going to do?”

“Hey ghost,” I yelled over my shoulder towards the kitchen. “We recognize you’re here. Hello, how are you? I’m Amy, that’s Susan, you probably already knew that… But we’re watching something here. Do you mind giving us a little peace? Slam twice if you understand.”

Bang. Bang.

“Oh shit,” Susan said. “You just communicated with a ghost!”

“Well, it was doing a pretty aggravating job communicating with us.” And true to its word, it waited until the credits rolled before, bang!

“Thanks ghost!” I called into the kitchen as we got up and headed to the room.

It was like that for months. Lights would turn on or off at will. I lost my Airpods for a week until I asked the ghost to put them back… at which time I found them in the fridge (I did not leave them there. I know that). It did that kind of things with keys, too. There was more banging of cabinets. Doors opening and closing on their own. It never felt malevolent, though. If anything, it seemed like it was acting out because it was…

“Bored,” Susan said. “It’s bored.”

“Excuse me?”

“It makes sense, Amy. Think about it: it’s like if you got a dog–”

“I’ve never had a dog. My mom was allergic.”

“Okay, it’s like if you had a hypothetical dog. If you can’t spend adequate time with it then they get bored and act out – poop on the floor or eat your favorite slippers.”

“Great, you’re saying I’m going to step in some ghost poop?”

“Not literally, silly,” she rolled her eyes.

“Well, then what? Do we put an ad in Craigslist for a play ghost to keep ours company?”

Susan ignored my well-thought-out question. “Hey, why don’t we get a dog?”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not?”

“I mean… it is our house. It’s not like we have to ask anyone’s permission, right?”

As I mentioned, I’d never had a dog. Susan said she had a dog growing up, but I realized she meant when she was too young to participate in the care of said canine. So, well… we pretty quickly realized we picked the wrong dog. See, we wanted a nice, gentle trainer dog. What we got was a pro-level, all-manual, turned-up-to-eleven puppy.

I took Elliot – yes, we named him Elliot – running with me in the mornings. Even though I was tired by the end of the five-mile loop, Elliot acted like he just woke up.

Dropping onto the bed, moaned, “What have we done?”

“We, uh, we got a dog.”

“Hmwff.”

“What?”

I lifted my head from the pillow and repeated, “Why?”

“Bet you haven’t thought about the ghost since Elliot showed up.”

I furrowed my brow in thought. “You’re right!”

Just then Elliot barked and came galloping back into the room with a well-chewed ball in his mouth.

“Did he pick that up on your run?” Susan asked eying the ball.

“No…” I said. “I haven’t seen that ball before…”

“Yeah, me either…”

“Well, you did say I hadn’t thought about the ghost in a while. Susan, I’m thinking about the ghost now…”

The first day we both had to work and we left Elliot home alone I stopped in at lunch to check on the beast to see what he’d destroyed in the few hours we’d left him. When I got there, though, Elliot was asleep in his crate. I went to the computer and logged in to our Furbo treat-dispensing camera – yes, of course we got the treat-dispensing camera for our new puppy. Who did you think we were?

Anyway, I scrolled through the morning’s footage and… first there was a lot of motion. I watched as the ball bounced down the hallway into the family room. In bounded Elliot, scooped up the ball in his mouth and then jogged back down the hallway and out of sight. A moment later, the ball came bouncing into the family room again, and there was Elliot racing after it. I put the replay on double speed and watched that scene repeat itself scores of times until Elliot had walked into the frame to retrieve the ball and then finally he walked in and fell over like a tipped cow.

I grabbed my cell phone. “Susan?”

“Yeah, what’s up? How’s Elliot? What’d he destroy?”

“Nothing. He’s fine. He’s asleep.”

“Wait, what? That devil-spawn is asleep? How can that be?”

“Well,” I said watching the video of Elliot asleep until the ball bounced into frame again and bounced of him, causing him to jump up and chase the ball again. “I think we have ourselves a built in dogsitter…”

I don’t like to be scared. Which is funny, because I keep seeking out creepy experiences that would seem scary. Like visiting cemeteries in the middle of the night. Or camping by a lake where people have repeatedly seen La Llorona. Or broke into abandoned sanitariums. At night. Alone.

I know, you don’t believe the “I don’t like to be scared” part. But it’s true. It’s not about being scared, it’s about getting a glimpse of the paranormal with my own eyes. And so far… I’ve been a little disappointed.

The cemeteries definitely have that creepy factor, but I mostly just got cold. And a twisted ankle when I tripped on a root. No La Llorona, at that night around the lake. Thought I did catch a trout for breakfast that morning. Maybe there’s a fish ghost out there now?

The sanitarium was probably the closest. There were unexplainable sounds… flashes of lights I couldn’t explain. Doors even opened and shut on their own – when they were out of view. Did I actually see anything? No, no I did not.

So, when I made a reservation at the Golden Sky Inn for room 319 I had high hopes (I always had high hopes), but no real expectations.

First, though, they tried to talk me out of it.

I made the reservation online and specified the room. This room was well known in the paranormal community. On the message boards numerous people reported to have been prodded or jostled in the middle of the night. One woman woke up to a shadowy man sitting at the end of the bed staring at her. A man recounted a sleepless night when the bed shook and bucked and even hovered a foot off the ground before dropping violently. One terrified guest said she tried to open the bathroom door but it was stuck shut and as she tried to open it, she heard the sink faucet turn on by itself.

Almost immediately after I submitted the reservation my phone rang. It was the hotel. The man was courteous and tried to get me to change my room. I explained I knew what I was getting in to and, yes, I was quite sure room 319 was the room I wanted to stay in. He tried valiantly, offering free breakfasts, another night… part of me wanted to take him up on the offers and mentally noted if I needed to stay here again to book room 319 with no intention of actually staying there, but every intention of getting freebies.

I don’t bring a lot of equipment. When I arrived that Friday night I had a normal overnight bag and my backpack with nothing more than my laptop and a digital recorder. I left the recorder running in the empty room while I went to dinner and reviewed the two hours of uneventful taped silence when I got back before taking a shower and turning in for the night – recorder again on.

Just after midnight I was jostled awake – literally, something jostled my foot. I was about to scream, but I opened my eyes and the scream froze in my throat. There, at the foot of my bed sat a bald man staring intently at me and smiling. Only, I could see he wasn’t completely solid. My initial fear that this was an intruder were replaced with real terror that this was not just a ghost but a full-bodied apparition… and it was staring at me.

And then it spoke. “Good,” it rasped, “You’re awake.” If being awakened by a full-bodied apparition wasn’t terrifying enough, to have it then speak… “It is now time…” it started, “to party!”

Instantly the dark room was awash with flashing-colored lights and the prismatic reflections of an unseen disco ball. Deafening electronic dance music filled the room with a thumping bass beat. The bald-headed man was standing now, gyrating with the beat. But he wasn’t alone. I looked around and could see other figures – most not as defined as the bald man, but clearly entities – dancing to the beat. More than see them, I could feel the bodies around me moving and dancing.

“Get up and dance!” the bald-headed man took my hand and pulled me out of the bed like I was weightless. With the ease at which he pulled me I thought at first this must be a dream… right up until I stubbed my toe on the bed. I bent over grabbing my foot and the bald-headed man was right there next to my face. “Are you okay?” he asked, concern on his face.

“Uh…” I stammered, “Yes… I mean, my foot hurts but it’s fine. I’m more concerned with what the hell is going on here.”

“It’s a rave!” he said straightening up and bouncing to the beat.

“Yeah, I can hear that,” I yelled back over the pulsing beat. “But why? Who are you?”

“Why? Because you’re here!”

I couldn’t help but start moving to the beat myself, but asked, “Me? What about me?”

“You’re the right mix.”

“Mix?”

“You believe, but you’re not hunting. You’re open but you’re not inviting. And you’ve got a little pinch of psychic ability that pulls the whole thing together.”

“I do? So, what?”

“So, your energy is like a key that allows all of us to just let loose!” he danced and spun in a circle.

A disembodied head of a woman apparated near my head and spoke, “We’re so tired of the normal turning-on-the-faucet routine! We needed a break!”

From the other side a figure existing out of dark smoke spoke, “Even the dead need to get funky sometimes!” Its incorporeal smoke pulsing to the beat.

“But who are you guys?” I asked.

“We’re the ones that haunt this room,” the bald man said.

“All of you?” I asked. The room seemed quite crowded with energies bouncing and moving.

“Well,” a headless torso spoke, “I haunt 237, but I heard the party was here tonight!”

“Almost all of us haunt this room,” The bald-headed man said.

Just then three loud knocks came from the door to the room. “Hotel Security!” came through muffled through the door. I moved to the door doing my best not to touch any of the dancing entities around me. Reaching the door to the room I flipped on the lightswitch and opened the door. Immediately the music stopped and when the security guard looked into the room, he saw an empty room and me in my pjs.

“Is there a problem?”

He stared at the empty room behind me without speaking.

“Sir?”

“Uh… yeah, we’ve gotten a number of noise complaints – something about a dance party going on in this room?”

“Well,” I said opening the door wide. “You can see there’s no one in here but me. I was just sleeping.”

“Sleeping? With that noise?”

“What noise?”

“I could hear it when I knocked on the door – electronic music?”

“From this room? Are you sure?”

He stared around at the room. My laptop was still in my backpack and aside from the day’s clothes on the floor, there was no visible indicators that anyone else had even been in the room. “I’m… I’m not sure about anything right now. You have a nice night,” he said and turned around.

“Thanks,” I said and closed the door. I flipped the lightswitch off and the dance music and strobing lights started again with all the ghosts dancing like nothing had interrupted them.

“Go Laurie, it’s your birthday!” the bald-headed man chanted, and a number of other entities joined in. I couldn’t help it, I gave in and danced the night away with the ghosts.